SUNDAY 20 JULY
80 MILES 880 METRES
Yes, I know I have missed Day Two, but see the previous post for my 300 mile car journey on Sat.
Anyway, Sunday in gorgeous Glen Shiel dawned a bit grey and overcast. I got Gordon's replacement bike all ready and headed off into the gloom for the climb up and over to the Cluanie Inn through majestic scenery. It was drizzly and cold to start and then it got worse - a blooming puncture! after only quarter of a mile. With this mended at the wee shop we headed off, only for the tyre to still lose air. Another roadside repair in the rain. This was getting tedious, especially as we realised that we had a dodgy puncture repair kit and a spare inner with the "wrong" sort of valve on it. However, we headed off again past the Cluanie dam and took a right for the slog up and over to Invergarry. At the top I once again had to stop and put more air in the tyre before the cracking descent down to Invergarry. The views at the top were amazing, all the way over to Glen Dessary and beyond. At the village we had a lovely bowl of soup and a pint of local ale, and, more importantly, a new puncture repair kit, yahoo!! Fully refreshed, repaired and inflated we were then off on to the busy road down the Great Glen to Spean Bridge and Fort William. Here I got a spare inner and another puncture repair kit, just to be sure. With the front tyre inflated with Off Beat Bike's track pump there was no stopping us as we hared off down to Glencoe. The views over to Ardgour were fantastic and on the bike you get plenty of time to take them all in, compared to the usual snatched views when driving. In Onich we had just bough our carry-out for that evening when there was an almighty screech behind me and I looked over my shoulder to see a car skid to a halt to my left on the verge. The lunatic had been speeding towards us from behind saw the juggernaut approaching from the opposite direction, and had one of 2 choices - plough into me or do an emergency skid to the side. Fortunately he chose the latter and even more fortunately he had somewhere to go. After that it was plain sailing down to the hostel in Glencoe village, fuelled by some tablet,where we chilled with some beer, tea and cake.
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